


(to think we could fall so far)

by Laroyena



Series: Mamabird Universe [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Dissociation, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omegaverse, Parenthood, Rough Sex, another mamabird verse au, this is the bad ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:46:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laroyena/pseuds/Laroyena
Summary: First Damian, now this. There was no way he could return to Bruce now. No alpha would take him back.(Talon AU; Batman Omegaverse) The Gray Son of Gotham is the perfect Talon. Until he comes across Talia al Ghul in a hotel room, and finds a five-year-old boy that is impossibly familiar.





	(to think we could fall so far)

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally an AU requested by an anon on my tumblr (laroyena.tumblr.com). If [(please come home)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7816777/chapters/17839495) is the good timeline of the mamabird verse, then this fic is the bad timeline. LOTS of angst ahead. The only fic you need to read before this one is [what happened across the sea.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7287868)
> 
> Upfront: I don't know a lot about the Court of Owls/Talon arc from the comics. I did some research, but I know I've probably gotten stuff wrong so please forgive me!!! And the recent Dark Metal comics add another layer to the Court's role so who knows what is happening in the canon now OTL
> 
> Apologies for the relative silence here these last few months-- I've been super busy with work and still feel the weight of my unfinished WIPs hanging over me /koff/ROSEANDSTONE/koff/. Also working on the Batfam holiday exchange, so that fic will be coming up soon too! If you want to see what I've been up to, feel free to check out my tumblr above. I fill prompts sometimes when I have free time and there are loads of small mamabird snippets hiding there.

It wasn’t the torture that broke him. It wasn’t the starvation, the fighting, the mind games. No. He’d endured all of that and more since he’d been an elementary school student.

What broke him was the kill.

When, after yet another fierce battle between clear-headed consciousness and dreamlike delusion, he came back to himself and found his hands bloody. He saw the knives embedded in the corpse sprawled at his feet, the Talon mask glinting gold in the dark streetlight.

First Damian, now this. There was no way he could return to Bruce now. No alpha would take him back.

And that. That was what finally broke him. It allowed the ghostly figures in the dark to place a mask over his head and whisper their goals into his ears.

That was the day Robin finally, truly died—and the newest Talon was born.

–

Dick was used to slipping through the shadows. It had become a necessity those first few years, when Bruce realized Dick’s lack of communication was more than an attempt at passive-aggressiveness. When the superheroes of the Justice League joined in on the increasingly frantic search, and it was only his personal knowledge of each hero that allowed Dick to escape their notice.

He wanted to leave evidence of his death to divert their attention—to give Bruce closure, because he _knew_ Bruce, knew the man wouldn’t stop looking, and the original Dick would’ve felt so terribly sad at that thought—but the Court wouldn’t allow him.

Instead, he investigated Gotham: its ties and connections and influences; the way the Batfamily changed the dynamic within the city; and the best ways to halt them in their tracks. The original Dick would have been mortified. Betraying the Bat, selling out his old secrets… but the original Dick had been pathetically loyal. Bound by hormones and trauma bonding, by the soft and distracting pleasures of the flesh. It was cringe-worthy.

He served the Court, and the Court demanded he carry out their orders.

So he did.

He did it for years until one day, he intercepted a message from a League of Shadows agent. The Court of Owls had been keeping an eye on the Shadows, mulling over the choice to keep them away from Gotham or to play them to their advantage. Dick had opinions, but his opinions didn’t matter.

They didn’t _matter._

So when he found himself in a hotel room with none other than Talia al Ghul bleeding out at his feet, he realized the original Dick—Before Dick—may not be as dead as he’d thought. And by killing a target of his own—a target the Court had unanimously agreed to _keep alive_ —he’d failed.

And the Court always retired failed Talons.

“You won’t be able to kill me with that,” he turned and caught the knives mid-throw. The little boy behind the bed snarled at him. “Come here. We’re going.”

“Grandfather is going to hunt you down!” the boy spat. “No one crosses the League of Shadows!”

“This is Gotham, boy. The Court is the one you should be worried about.”

Speaking of, he could already feel the dominoes falling. In approximately two minutes, the lower-tier Court soldiers would locate him after he failed to report in that morning. Their mutated visages were the last thing he needed to see right now. He flipped over the mattress, grabbed the boy, and then smashed right through the window.

The boy bit and scratched and wriggled like a little demon, but Dick simply hauled him even higher into his arms and pressed his little head against his chest. He made it halfway across town before realizing his hostage had gone eerily complacent. Once they were secure in one of Dick Grayson's old safehouses, he set the boy onto the floor and examined him through his mask. He was five-ish. yYung but clearly already equipped with League Training. He was staring up at him with familiar blue eyes— _why was it familiar_ —expression shocked and curious and almost afraid.

Dick reached out and brushed a strand of hair back from the boy’s face.

“Who are you?” the boy asked. “Why— you killed Mother. Why did you do that?”

Dick didn’t respond. He brushed the boy’s hair back again, his gloved thumb sweeping up his temple. A memory threatened to shatter him whole, and Dick knew he should kill the boy.

Leave no witnesses. Show no weakness.

Except the child reached up and tapped his Talon mask, and Dick.

Dick, ignoring all the warning bells going off in the organized, assassin part of his mind, took it off.

Smells assaulted him from every angle, every corner. Most of all from the little boy in front of him, who smelled sweet and soft and like _his_ —

“Damian,” he gasped, memory slamming into him like a truck against glass. It _hurt_ so bad. “Damian, oh.”

And then he was gathering the little owlet up into his arms, feeling the thick porcelain veneer he’d worn for so many years simply shatter. It broke off in jagged, uneven pieces that cut him deep, and it had been so long since he’d felt this kind of pain. This kind of—of passion.

Damian was alive. He was alive and here and if killing had broken Before Dick, then finding his son had shocked him back to life. Enough to know he couldn’t keep running.

Enough that he knew what he had to do.

–

He abandoned the suit, the knives, and all other physical aspects of the Talon. He found cash he’d squirreled away around Gotham before everything, and used it to buy unassuming clothes for Damian and himself. Damian was already trained to hide and defend and slip through the night, thankfully. He became Dick’s little shadow in their excursions.

They were on the run from three dangerous groups: the League of Shadows for killing their Mistress; the Batfamily for killing the Bat’s former lover; and the Court, not only for his abandonment but for revealing their existence to the one person that should never know: the Dark Knight, the Court’s most volatile chess piece in recent years.

For this, Dick had had to leave Damian in his safehouse. He’d given him a juice box and a box of crackers and a little elephant toy, ignoring all of Damian’s protests that he wasn’t a baby. He kissed his forehead and slipped out of the window.

When he snuck back into the still-undiscovered crime scene, the hideous Court underlings were waiting for him. He dispatched them easily. He piled the bodies around Talia and glanced around the room.

The League ninjas hadn’t arrived yet, which meant he still had time to ensure Talia’s true death. Yet another reason to keep Damian away. The smell of burning flesh wasn’t for the faint of heart, even if it was poetic justice.

Afterwards, he arranged shattered debris on each underling’s chest. Not an “R.” Not a bat. No.

A “V” like symbol he knew Bruce would recognize from that fateful day in the circus. It was the symbol of the Flying Graysons, who’d long forgotten the origin of those bold wings.

The Court had reclaimed that origin. Now, Dick was taking it back.

–

While Bruce inevitably lost his shit over the discovery of some secret organization living beneath his Gotham; Talia’s death; and Dick’s undeniable mark on the bodies—while Bruce did that, Dick took Damian on vacation.

“What’s Disneyland?” Damian frowned once they finished riding trains and buses on their cross-country adventure. He hugged his stuffed elephant against his chest and looked over his shoulder at the pamphlet in Dick’s hands. “Mother says these places rot your brain.”

“She’s not your mother,” Dick said, voice sharp. “That woman was nothing more than a thief.”

Damian sniffed, and Dick softened immediately. He wasn’t a Talon, an assassin, a piece on a chessboard. He wasn’t trying to inspire fear. He wrapped his arm around Damian’s waist, and the boy cuddled against his side.

Damian was his little owlet. The chick that was torn away from him before his time; the first, nearly fatal wound that had crippled Robin enough for the Court to strike the finishing blow.

“She took you away from me,” he whispered to the boy after a day strolling through the park and growing dizzy on rides. Damian had nearly scared some poor Mickey Mouse to death when he kicked off his mascot head, convinced it was a League Assassin waiting to take them back. They’d settled in a hotel for the night, and something about the moonlight loosened his tongue. “She took you away, hid you, claimed you. But you’re mine, Damian. And I took you back.”

“I didn’t meet Moth—I didn’t meet Talia until a year ago,” Damian confessed to him in a whisper. “My teachers took care of me mostly. But then she wanted to meet with Father and thought it’d be a good idea to take me along. I mean.” An awkward pause. Damian shuffled closer and curled up right against Dick’s chest like a kitten. “He’s… still my father?”

“Yes,” Dick confirmed, and the boy’s body relaxed. He felt like he was talking about someone else’s lover; someone else’s life; except it was _his_. It all felt so distant. “He is. And he’ll come for us, Dami. We just need to give him time.”

He’d left enough breadcrumbs to lead Bruce on a merry chase. A chase that would allot him information in acceptable portions, spaced out enough that he’d be able to take time to emotionally recover before devouring the next clue. Because even if it felt like a dream, Dick knew what Bruce was like. Knew he couldn’t be confronted too suddenly with a horrible idea—like the idea that his Robin was a killer.

Like the idea that “Robin” was dead.

So he took his time introducing Damian to the creature comforts of the American life, experiences he’d never really had in the cold halls of the League of Shadows headquarters. He smiled and played and sometimes felt so much like the old Dick Grayson he almost tricked himself into thinking he _was_.

Until the Court of Owls decided to ruin his plans by unleashing a wave of retired Talons onto Gotham—and Dick bought two plane tickets to fly them back home.

–

Bruce had built up quite an army of bats in Dick’s absence. He’d known about the new Robins in the abstract, though he’d never fought side-by-side with them until now. It was scary how easy it was to fall back into the assassin mindset. How nearly a month spent with his son seemed to evaporate once his target was set. Still, things were different. No matter how far he went into the assassin rabbit-hole, simply glancing over at Damian reminded him of who he was.

He was Dick Grayson. Damian was his son. And he _was_ going home.

He’d retrieved his Talon outfit and outfitted Damian in a miniature one he’d patiently crafted on their long flight. He gave the boy two sharp knives from his collection and watched him cut through an arm with deadly precision.

Then, they joined the fight.

Retired Talons were deadly, unstoppable, remorseless. Actual zombies that had no real weakness except for a poison Dick knew he couldn’t retrieve on his own. He waited until the vigilantes fell back before finding his little owlet collecting fallen knives from the ground. The shadows trained him well. It made half of him very, very proud; and the other half very sad.

“Our timetable’s been moved up,” he called out, reaching for the boy. He hefted Damian up into his arms and glanced over to where he knew Wayne Manor stood in the distance. “We’re meeting your father now.”

“Now?”

“If we want to get the Court off our backs for good—yes, now. He’ll probably be upset.”

“Why?”

”Because he likes knowing everything. Not knowing things drives him crazy.”

“If he is upset by his own failure to research, then he is a weakling,” Damian declared, and Dick ruffled his hair with a warm smile.

–

He walked right into the Batcave without preamble: Talon mask in place, knives strapped to his chest, Damian in his arms. The boy, still outfitted in his miniature suit, pressed his face to his collar.

Batarangs, knives, even a gun was leveled at his head within a second, but Dick wasn’t scared by any of those. No. He only had eyes for Bruce, who’d gone white as a sheet at the sight of his Talon suit.

“Bruce, that’s a _Talon!_ ” The smaller Robin—Timothy Drake, son of Jack and Janet Drake, an omega who would’ve inspired a bit of jealousy in the old Dick Grayson—hissed as Dick stepped closer. “How the hell did one find the _Batcave_?”

“B,” Jason Todd—the Robin whom Bruce had reluctantly replaced him with, who’d been killed and revived in some form of ironic justice, who the Court had spent an entire hour deliberating over while he went on his criminal killing spree that one time— _that_ Jason Todd flicked off the safety off his gun. “He’s getting closer.”

Dick stopped within arm’s reach of the vigilantes. Damian sniffed and looked at each family member in turn, just as each family member stared at Dick without blinking. Robin two. Robin three. Batgirl. Alfred.

Bruce.

“There is only one way to kill the revived Talons,” he spoke, cutting niceties. Niceties were a waste of time. “A poison developed by the Court of Owls. They keep it to themselves—we’ll need a team effort to retrieve it. Without it, there is no hope for the Batman in Gotham.”

“Team effort? Seriously? That’s Trap Basics 101, man,” Jason laughed. “Bet there isn’t even a poison. You think we’d just believe you? Why?”

“Because he knows I know who he is,” Bruce finally found his voice. There was a pinched quality to his face even half-hidden under his cowl, and he ignored the other’s warnings as he stepped closer. Close enough for Dick to sink a knife in his gut with barely a flick of a finger.

If he wanted to.

He reached out and carefully removed Dick’s mask. Disbelief, horror and yes, even a bit of joy flickered across Bruce’s face.

“Dick,” he breathed.

“Hiya Bruce,” Dick replied, plastering Robin’s old grin across his face. “I’m home.”

\--

After the Talons were once more safe in their caskets, never to be awoken from slumber again—

Once Dick was safe from one enemy and mostly protected against another—

He left.

The hardest decision had been whether or not to take his owlet. On one hand, the fierce maternal instinct inside him rankled at the idea of parting with his son. On the other, Before Dick would have balked at the idea of dragging a five-year-old on a cross-country jaunt rife with danger, even if said five-year-old was a League-trained assassin that could kill a man in two moves.

Bruce, the utter bastard, saw his vulnerability for what it was.

“Damian,” he crouched down before the boy, looking surprisingly gentle in his simple collared shirt and dark slacks. Batman may be a terrifying shadow of the night, but Bruce Wayne had always had a soft spot for kids—even if he wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable with dealing with them. Damian narrowed his eyes warily at his father. “You’ll be safe here. Stable. You can learn and grow into your own person, and you will be loved.”

“I want to stay with Mom,” Damian said.

Bruce’s gaze flickered up at Dick’s masked face. He hadn’t taken it off since that first reveal, down in the cave where the other Robins had nearly blown his head off. It made easier to ignore Bruce’s alpha scent, but it was also more difficult gauging his next move.

“I was the one to train your mother,” and Bruce betrayed a bit of his own weakness when his voice hitched at the word _‘Mother.’_ Just one more shocking secret laid bare in this mess of a situation. The only good thing to come from it was the family’s silent but unanimous decision to drop the case of Talia’s death.

R’as had gone silent as well once word had trickled back to Nanda Parbat. Talia’s own lies were enough to keep the man occupied with his own affairs, too much to bother avenging her death in Gotham. It gave Dick just enough breathing room to loosen the tight reins he’d had around Damian since finding him again. To let Bruce bargain with Damian like he wasn’t planning to rip their child from his hands, like Talia had done.

That might not be fair, but Dick wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

Bruce continued, “I can train you the same way. R’as al Ghul once saw something inside of me that convinced him I was to be his heir, and I was strong enough to escape his grasp. You can learn that too.”

“I want to stay with _Mom_ ,” Damian repeated. He wrapped an arm around Dick’s leg, tight and possessive. Dick felt a surprising flush of warmth at the gesture. Damian tugged his belt, and he obediently hefted his owlet into his arms and pressed his masked face into his fluffy black hair. The devastated expression Bruce wore was hard to take in: not because Damian had rejected him, but because of what his actions revealed about Dick’s psyche.

Before Dick would never allow this.

He took a deep breath. Tightened his grip around the owl costume fitted around Damian’s waist, where at least four knives were hidden beneath its folds. He never wanted to let him go. Not now, not ever, not when his baby was one of the few things keeping him from going back into that icy assassin façade. He’d lose Dick Grayson for good, and then who’d he be? A Talon? _The_ Talon?

Being a clean slate might appeal to some, but it terrified him. He wasn’t Dick Grayson anymore, but he wanted to be. He _wanted_ to feel those emotions again; to find comfort in this sprawling mansion around them; to know and remember who he was. The fraction of love he felt for the owlet curled in his arms was enough to convince him he was missing something.

Dick Grayson would never take his precious baby away from this sanctuary.

“Dami,” and Dick turned and gently settled Damian down onto the ground. With his back to Bruce and the others, he carefully removed his mask and took a shuddering breath. Scents hit him from all angles. Damian’s sweet, fierce child’s scent. Alfred’s usual calm beta air, mixed with just enough sadness for him to understand how hard this must be for him to watch. And Bruce’s tense, suspicious alpha scent cutting clear across the room.

Too long. It had been way too long since Dick had paid any attention to his body’s needs, given the chemical cocktail he'd been given while under the Court's thumb. A cocktail that was clearly out of his system by now, which gave Bruce's stupid, primal scent the power to open the floodgates.

Damian understood his intention at once.

“No,” he said, throwing himself into Dick’s arms. He wrapped his arms around his neck and clung to him hard, like nearly suffocating him would convince him to take him along. “No, no, no!”

“You’ll be the safest here,” Dick said, trying to pry his little fingers from his Talon suit. “With your family. Dick’s— _my_ family. The Court’s got allies around the world, and the League of Shadow’s gonna come after me eventually. Gotham’s the safest place for you, and your dad—”

“I wanna help! Grandfather—R’as, he taught me things about the League,” Damian raised his chin. “I can be useful. I was trained a warrior. You _saw_ me fight!”

“You are _five_.”

“I’m not a _baby_!”

“No, but you still deserve a childhood. You can’t have that traveling with me, Damian. Do you understand?”

Damian stamped a foot and tried to dart away, but Dick was faster. He grabbed the boy’s arm and wrestled him back. Then, he let himself take one shuddering more breath before picking his mask up from the floor and securing it onto his face. When Damian tried to pry it off, Dick readjusted his grip mercilessly.

“Your father loves you,” he said, voice as unwavering as he could manage. “You always wanted to know more about him, yeah? I just need a bit of time to myself, but I’m not abandoning you—I love you, Dami. My little boy.” He carded his free hand through Damian’s dark hair. The boy struggled for a few minutes more before suddenly slumping in his arms, tears streaking down his cheeks. Dick wiped a trail away with a thumb.

“I’ll always come back,” Dick said, both a promise to himself and to Damian. “Promise you’ll be good. And don’t run away to follow me. I’ll know.”

Damian glowered. Clearly, Dick had correctly guessed his next train of thought.

“Promise,” Dick said. His voice left no room for argument.

“I promise,” Damian muttered under his breath. Damian pressed his mask against his forehead once more, unable to kiss the crease in his brow but also unable to remove it. Not with their audience, and not with the increasingly intolerable itch running under his skin. He’d breathed in too much of Bruce’s scent already, and he needed to get out of here.

“Take care of him,” he said, squeezing Damian’s shoulder at the manor entrance. The boy looked especially small and downcast in the great shadow of the door. Bruce narrowed his eyes at him consideringly, and that was—

It was too much.

A heartbeat later, he was gone.

–

Wally West. Roy Harper. Donna Troy. The Court of Owls had spent its time tearing away the loyalties he’d had for the Batfamily of Gotham. The rest of his relationships had been less carefully destroyed. A cross-country visit was his best option to find Dick Grayson again. To make sure it was Dick who came home to his little boy, to show Damian the kind of brightness he so clearly deserved.

But first, he had business to attend to.

He stumbled into one of his safehouses at the edge of Gotham City, the one he’d hidden Damian in what felt like a lifetime ago. Alarms and traps still functional. Cot in the corner and money beneath a removable tile in the floor. He wrestled off the Talon mask from his face and took a deep breath. One. Two. The air tasted stale but was thankfully scentless. He tugged at his suit and began unzipping it with a trembling hand.

Dick had been ignoring the building itch under his skin since confronting Bruce again face-to-face. Out of necessity, mostly. His Talon mind hadn’t been able to handle Bruce’s stupid alpha scent confusing him.

(Wally would have been able to give him suppressants, birth control, anything to keep the tide from crashing—but there was no way he’d make it to Central City in time. Not with his heat so close.)

He recognized the taste in his mouth even after nearly five years without heats. He was an omega. There were things he just _knew._

Hence, the safehouse.

He checked the perimeter once, twice. He carefully bolted the windows shut. He reinforced the traps above the door just in case and laid out two glinting knives on the floor beside the cot.

Then he curled up on the dingy cot and forced himself to slowly fall into a Talon Trance—a state of mind he’d hoped he’d never have to use again. Once upon a time, the solution would’ve been as easy as crawling into Bruce’s bed. But _that_ Dick wasn’t here, hadn’t even tried to resurface when the beginnings of heat began cropping up back at the manor. Sharing his heat would be too much, too fast, too volatile. Damian needed him to make a clean cut from the manor, not stick around and confuse him further.

A trance was the best way to guard himself; to strip away the weaknesses a heat would force onto him. The Talon wouldn’t be so easily distracted.

If anyone tried to pry open the door and approach without his consent, the Talon would eviscerate them with a flick of the wrist.

–

He expected it to last around three days, as usual. Fortune, however, wasn’t on his side.

–

Hell raged for four days before Dick realized something was wrong. He’d come to every once in a while to see a flashing light blinking through the window. The Bat was clearly keeping an eye on him, and he was as grateful as he was enraged. The omega inside his chest howled with indignity, because if Bruce was getting a free show he might as well _put out_.

But the Bat’s gaze kept the remaining Owls’ attention away. The distraction Dick had hastily put together before returning to Gotham hadn’t been as neatly planned out as it should have been. The Court never stopped until they got what they wanted, and the Gray Son of Gotham was an asset too valuable to let loose. Retrieve or kill. Those were the only options.

Except Dick Grayson was apparently jumping across town on a clear path to Star City, and the Owls were watching _him_ instead.

God bless J’onn and M’gann and their shapeshifting. The Talon part of him would’ve suggested countermeasures if he’d still been under the Court’s control, but he wasn’t a Talon anymore. And he needed them off his back for Damian’s sake more than anything else.

It was the perfect distraction until Dick could pick himself up and get out of the city. And as usual, perfection invited disaster.

\--

Dick woke up on the fifth day of his ravaging heat to find himself half-sprawled across the cot and his skin feeling like it was on _fire_. Survival instinct—instilled by Bruce and then beaten into his head by the Owls—flared up in warning.

Five days and his temperature just kept on rising with no end in sight. Over 115 degrees Fahrenheit was death, and he didn’t need a thermometer to know he was getting dangerously, sickeningly close.

–

“Christ!”

Dick came back to himself to find a bloody knife in his hands. The flap of a red cape, and suddenly he was rolling out of the way of a bo-staff. He swung his legs up in an attempt to sweep his attacker off his feet, but a sudden bout of dizziness had him stumbling.

He landed awkwardly on a knee and tried to recover by scrabbling for the knife instead. His attacker pounced on his back, and Dick found his hands forced behind his back and handcuffed together by the wrist.

“I’m not trying to hurt you!” he finally heard the boy shouting at him. Had the boy been shouting at him the entire time? He’d only heard the rush of blood upon waking, the kind of panic he’d felt too often at the Court’s hands. The boy rambled as he checked Dick’s constraints: “I’m here to help. Oh fuck, you’re burning up. Bruce should’ve never let you leave the manor—respect and privacy my ass, he only brings those up when we least need it. Hey, don’t close your eyes. Damian will kill me if you die, and he’s enough of a demon brat as it is—”

“Who are you,” Dick interrupted.

“Robin,” the boy said. “And you’re Dick Grayson.”

Robin. Tim Drake, the omega boy Bruce had picked up. A threat to his claim over his alpha, despite the rational part of Dick’s brain knowing he was just a _boy._ Bruce’s twisted moral code didn’t—wouldn’t—sink that low.

“I need to take you back to the cave. We already prepared for this result since Hood retrieved logs confirming the Court’s refusal to let you ride out a yearly heat. Good for Bruce’s temper, not too good for your body. Once we get back—”

“No,” Dick managed. “Can’t go back.”

“You either go back and suffer, or stay here and possibly die,” Robin said. “You know that. It’s why you sent us a signal, remember?”

A signal? Dick realized he was clutching something in his left hand. A panic button. He vaguely remembered his terror at the thought of death; at the thought of leaving Damian alone. It’d been enough to break through the Talon sociopathy he’d wrapped himself in like a shield, and then…

“Hey,” Tim said, reaching out to grab a shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep.”

Dick bucked him off right into the wall. Robin crashed onto the floor with a choked _oomph,_ giving Dick enough time to try and wriggle his way towards a discarded knife on the floor.

But Robin was quicker than he’d thought, because a split second later the boy was back and pressing a syringe into his exposed neck. He hissed and fought back, but already he could feel his limbs starting to grow heavier. Some kind of knock-out drug, then. Inadvisable given his current medical state, which was probably why Robin didn’t drug him from the start.

Robin looked over him, his face growing fuzzier and fuzzier with every second. He touched something in his ear. “Yes—yes, hey, you don’t have to yell. I’ve got him, and it’s worse than we thought. No, he’s even lashing out at _me_ and I’m an omega, there’s no telling how violent he’ll get if he’s cornered by some alphas. Let me take him in.”

Bruce. It had to be Bruce.

“…yes sir. Look, just my estimates but the speed it’s come on, it’s bad enough I think we _do_ have to drop pleasantries…”

“Dami,” Dick whispered, more to himself than to the omega watching him burn alive. He could probably fight his way out of this, but that meant death. The Talon would have killed this Robin, but not Dick Grayson.

Damian reminded him of that. He couldn’t forget.

–

(“No.”

“It’ll take too long for the anesthetic to wear off, and there’s a reason omegas on suppressants need to allow one heat every year. Four, five years non-stop is way too long.”

“It _is_ too long, Tim. We haven’t… is there no way to wake him up earlier?”

“Mom?”

The vigilantes froze at the sound of Damian entering the Bat Cave. Tim immediately pulled closed the curtains surrounding the medical cot they were keeping Dick in, even when Damian’s big blue eyes zeroed in on it at once. “Mom!”

“Damian,” Tim tried, and Damian rounded on him at once.

“You! Imposter son—what are you doing to my _mother?”_

“Master Damian!” Alfred appeared at the cave entrance, flustered. Seeing as Damian should have been safely tucked in bed by now, it was no wonder. “Master Damian, I insist you return to bed. Master Dick is in no state—”

“You _did_ something to him!” Damian shouted, tearing away from Alfred’s grasp. And honestly, the way he ducked and wove around the other Bats was unreal; not even Dick as a child had been so slippery. He nearly made it to the curtain, a knife he whipped out of nowhere in his hands ready to slash it through, when Bruce grabbed him by the waist and tore him away. “No! Lemme go! Lemme _go! Mom_!”

Bruce turned and dumped the screeching boy into Alfred’s arms. He jabbed a finger at him, voice deepening into an alpha growl. “Damian, your mother is very sick and needs help. We do not have time to deal with one of your meltdowns. Do you understand?”

Tears gathered in Damian’s eyes. He let out a little frustrated growl of his own, and if there was any doubt he was Bruce’s son…

“Damian, answer me.”

“Yes, Father,” the boy finally said, stopping his writhing altogether. Alfred glanced down at the sullen child and then up at Bruce, who’d resumed his fuming and pacing around the medcot. The Bat was far more controlled than the average alpha, but even he had limits. And with the scent Dick was letting off in waves…

“I’ll take him upstairs, sir,” Alfred patted Damian’s head and turned back towards the stairs. “Come along, Master Drake. Let’s give them some semblance of privacy.”)

–

Dick was back at the manor. He knew that, could identify the unique blend of familiar scents even half drugged out on anesthetic mixed with a heat headache. And what a goddamn headache.

Hot, unrelenting pressure squeezed his brain from inside his skull. Not fun. He was slowly waking up, but to what he had no idea. His struggle to consciousness was marked first by sensation. Shallow relief. Comfort. The soft thrill of being fucked and enjoying it, even if it wasn’t nearly enough to slake the thirst of his heat.

(God, it’d been so long. Even before the Court, before Damian’s birth, he remembered how he sat in a little apartment in Italy and _ached_.)

“Bruce,” he mumbled, still trying to claw himself to consciousness. Everything was over-sensitive, sore, and burning hot at once. He patted the air until he found a stubbled jaw, running his fingers up until he could bury his fingers into short-cropped hair.

“Dick, calm down,” Bruce’s hand wrapped firmly around his wrist. He stopped moving, and oh. For some absurd reason, Dick hadn’t  _really_ noticed the hot stretch of Bruce’s cock inside of him. Instead, he noticed the air—the warmth, the sound, the sharp scent of Bruce’s alpha pheromones surrounding them both. Looking into his face was a mistake, because B looked _wrecked._ Hair tousled, cheeks flushed a somewhat familiar red. Raw bites littered his shoulder, the sight so familiar it felt like Talon and Dick Grayson literally overlapped each other for a disorienting moment.

(Focus, Dick. What’s happening? Heat gone wrong. Robin arriving. Health hazard, most reliable cure was sex with his alpha, and _his_ alpha had been close. Explicit consent would have been nice, but Dick was beyond caring. Bruce and he both knew Dick wouldn’t say _no_ —even with his Talon history breathing down their backs.)

Bruce waited a beat. Two. Dick stared up at him as the world righted itself. Hot need quickly overtook the sluggish drugged haze, but Bruce was a sight he couldn’t tear his gaze away from. He could stare forever, but _god_ , they were suddenly moving again. Picking up where they left off, apparently, with Bruce’s hands grabbing him under his thigh—

(Stupid red drapes around bed posts. Bruce’s room. Pitch blackness outside the windows. Still nighttime. Probably their second round given the wetness of the sheets below him, the residual soreness around his entrance from being knotted. It was the perfect scenario for Before Dick to come rushing back, but he didn’t. He knew it couldn’t have been that easy.)

The bites on Bruce’s shoulder meant Dick had at least been responsive in his drugged-out state, not lying there limp like a doll. Which was good, but nothing compared to him _really_ participating. He kissed Bruce harder, deeper, his fingers tangling in his hair, until he was able to suddenly flip them over and straddle his lap.

Much better.

He rolled his hips into the alpha’s erratic thrusts, hitting the perfect spot inside him with uncanny precision. Five years going without and yet apparently coming out of his fever to find Bruce balls-deep in his ass was enough to bring the body memory back. It would be annoying if it wasn’t convenient, because once they were fucking again Dick didn’t know how to _stop._

He needed this like he needed air, and even with his alpha at his mercy it wasn’t enough. He could barely breathe. He came, sudden and hard and wholly unsatisfactory, and let out a frustrated whine when the heat only seemed to increase. Fucked down on his cock until he came again, and it _wasn’t enough._ Dick leaned down and bit Bruce’s shoulder hard in punishment. Anger.

He kept biting as Bruce manhandled him onto his back—and it _was_ manhandling, because Dick wasn’t giving up his preferred position without a fight _._ He made sure to draw blood when Bruce managed to successfully flip them over; he drew blood again when Bruce fucked into him hard.

Retaliation for before, sure, but also him fighting brattiness with violence. Messy, self-pleasuring thrusts that had Dick baring his teeth in preparation for a complaint, until the familiar weight of his knot stretched him enough to steal his breath away.

Oh. The anger dissipated. He’d missed this.

Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes. He wanted to keep going, but he also kind of wanted to burst out crying, and neither seemed to be very good options. Burning heat inside meant Bruce was coming, which would be fine if he didn’t notice how quiet the man was. How still. Even as he trembled minutely in release, he still hid his handsome face in Dick’s neck. It told him all he needed to know about the last five years.

It was one thing to watch from afar, and another to be confronted with the wave of mixed alpha pheromones washing over him. Bruce had missed him. Mourned him.

Had let him slip away for who knows how long, because god knows what would happen if he tried reining Dick in again.

But it had hurt, and they both knew it. Dick wrapped his legs around his waist and cradled the back of his head with a hand.

He may feel oddly distant about many things; may have forgotten many things; but he remembered this. This pain and concern and love, where all he could do was offer comfort. It wasn’t the sex that brought a piece of Dick Grayson back. Of course not.

It was the sense of mourning. The hurt.

Every piece of Dick he managed to piece back together was going to hurt, he knew. Damian’s discovery first, and now this one. It would be easier to give up and forge his own path. To escape and figure out what a Talon could do on his own.

But there was a little boy sleeping down the hall who needed Dick to get himself together—literally, as it happened. And there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his son.

And nothing he wouldn’t do for Bruce either, no matter how the two of them denied it.

–

“You’re going,” Bruce said, narrowing his eyes while Dick soaped his hair under the spray of the showerhead. The man had showered first and then sat at the open door like a creep while Dick took his turn, whether to appreciate the free show or keep an eye on their resident questionably brainwashed Robin. “Damian will be upset.”

“Damian needs to bond with you and the others,” Dick replied. He ignored Bruce’s gaze and rinsed his hair. “I’m not good for him. Not like this.”

“He spent the first three days circumventing our security system and nearly getting himself killed on the streets of Gotham.”

“What, the great Batman can’t keep a five-year-old kid still?” Dick shut the water off and slid open the glass door. He looked down at the still reddened marks on his wrists, his inner arm. Tim’s tranq had even left a puckered dot on his neck, and he scowled at it. “Let me guess, you just left him at home and hid in your office all day. He’s running away ‘cause you’re not getting to know him. He’s your _son_ , B. Take him to the zoo or something.”

“Dick,” Bruce said, and oh, he recognized that tone of voice.

“Don’t you start.”

“Is this why you ran?”

“No,” Dick stepped over Bruce’s legs and rummaged through his drawer like he’d been doing it forever. Five years wasn’t enough time for B to change his sock-folding habits. “I ran because you were being a controlling jackass. I got _captured_ because—”

He cut himself off. By the time he finished pulling on a nondescript pair of pants and white t-shirt, Bruce had stood up and was looming over him.

“Dick,” Bruce said, voice low. Dick didn’t look up. “Why did you kill Talia?”

He glared up at him. “ _Don’t._ ”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Because this isn’t about you, Bruce!” Dick whirled and smacked the alpha hard in the chest. “You insensitive _ass!_ “

“I mourned Jason when he died,” Bruce caught his wrist. “And I mourned you when I thought you were gone, too. I know what that kind of pain feels like.”

“Well fine, whatever. We both win the tragic backstory contest. But it’s done. I broke through the programming, got the hell out of Dodge, and brought Damian back where he belongs. Now let me go.”

“You belong here, too.”

“No, _Dick Grayson_ belongs here. This me—” Dick tugged himself away and backed up towards the window. His Talon gear was probably stowed away in the Bat Cave, but the itch beneath his skin screamed at him to leave _now._ “This me isn’t him. And I can’t put myself together with you—and Dami—and _everyone_ —”

Bruce didn’t follow him. He simply watched Dick with those stupidly deep blue eyes, until Dick’s hands were pressed against the glass and fumbling the lock open.

“You’re always welcome here, Dick,” he finally said, once Dick was halfway out the window. “I never said it before, but I need you to know.”

“Yeah B,” Dick resisted the urge to shiver when a wind blew through his still-wet hair. His heat might be over, but he was still weakened from the experience. Thank God he knew Gotham like the back of his hand. “I know.”

He dropped down from the window and onto the ledge below. Escaping wasn’t a problem when Bruce and the family weren’t chasing after him. When Bruce was just going to let him go.

(If he stopped by Damian’s window and peered in on his little owlet on the way out, well. No one had to know.)

\--

Three months was a particularly meaningful measure of time.

\--

Wading through the cold waters beneath Gotham brought back memories he’d rather have kept hidden forever. It was both terrifying and comforting, because as much as he loathed his time under the Court’s thumb, it had been… peaceful, in a way. No more doubts, emotions, attachments.

If these last three months had taught him anything, it was that _caring_ was so very, very painful sometimes.

“The Gray Son,” a voice called out from the dark.

Dick turned and stood, undaunted, as the Court of Owls slowly stepped forward from the shadows around him. They were all interchangeable behind their owl masks. A sea of white porcelain staring back at him.

“You have returned,” one member said.

“Foolish, given the disaster you have caused since betraying the Court.”

“Or have you decided to come beg for our forgiveness?”

“No,” Dick said.

A considering silence.

“It's over,” Dick said, voice like ice. “You shredded my identity and broke me like so many others before, and for what? To turn me into a knife to stab Batman with?” He refused to move, not even when those closest to him shifted closer. “Like breaking me would break _him_ , and in that perfect moment you’d finally be able to trap the Batman in your cage.”

“We can still put you down, Gray Son,” an Court member said. “Even if the timing is no longer right. And when the Batman comes seeking revenge, all the pieces will fall into place.”

Dick didn’t even twitch when a member suddenly grabbed his chin and tilted it up. He caught a glimpse of an upside-down Gotham above them and, instead of cowering like a good, submissive omega, just bared his teeth. “No.”

“The choice isn’t yours.”

“It’s not,” Dick slowly reached up and unzipped his collar an inch. A tendon in the Owl’s neck jumped. “But you’ve waited centuries for the right time to fulfill your _prophecy_. Are you really going to ruin it for something as petty as impatience?” He could see the exact moment the Owl realized what he meant. When his scent made its way past even the starkest of owl masks, and the stirring of the council meant they realized what a prize they had in their hands.

“You can have a battle-worn Wayne too stubborn to bear the burden of your god,” Dick said, finally jerking back from the Owl’s grip. He let him. They all did, fanning around him like marble statues. Watching closely but not touching. “Or you can have a Wayne of even stronger blood. A Wayne and a Gray Son in one, blood reinforced with your goddamn precious metal. Your choice.”

“We can keep you here,” one member finally said. “Raise the child ourselves, under our influence.”

“No.”

“You have nothing to wager with, boy.”

“Neither do you. He _knows_ you’re here now. He knows what you’ve done. And if you keep me here, he’ll come blazing in when you’re not ready, and it’s. Not. _Time_.” Dick narrowed his eyes. “This wasn’t a negotiation. It’s just a polite declaration of intent. Leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone—and in a decade’s time, when you come for us again? We’ll be ready.”

“Boy,” the Owl repeated.

“I’m not your _boy_ ,” and Dick finally allowed a small flicker of his rage to come across his gaze. He refused to move, not even when the Court's rage washed over him.“This conversation is over.”

Hands were reaching out for him now, carelessly grabbing at his uniform, mask, belts; the fingers gripping his chin was like a painful vice; the enraged raucous of the crowd was washing over him like an angry beast.

And as suddenly as he’d been manhandled, he was let go.

He nearly fell into the water below him, and only stayed on his feet from his body-memory as an acrobat. It gave him the perfect, satisfying view of each member of the Court slowly stepping back into the shadows. One by one the pale masks faded from sight, until Dick was once again alone.

He took a deep breath. And then another. When the minute shaking of his hands finally faded, he pulled off his gloves and tossed them into the watery darkness. Reached into his own mouth and ran a finger pad against the crown of a molar he’d memorized the shape of in the three months he’d spent away from Gotham.

Without any more hesitation, he dug his nails into the implant and tore it out. The resounding _crack_ rang sickeningly through the cave.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he spat.

The electrum implant glittered in the low light of the dark. His entire jaw ached with a dull, coppery pain, already missing the superhuman effects of the metal lying bloody in his palm.

He’d done his research. Consulted with the experts. He’d never be truly free of this damn metal’s effects; not when the years it had been spent in his mouth had poisoned his very cells.

Poisoned _her._

He threw the offending thing into the water and watched it vanish into its depths.

Then, Dick slowly turned around and began wading his way back towards the exit.

It was done.

\--

(“It’s only been three months,” Zatanna had said quietly, the morning she teleported him back into Gotham and Dick stood before the rising sun like a man facing his greatest trial. “You didn’t have to come back so soon, Dick.”

 _You could have stayed with me_ , went unsaid, because none of his allies had been particularly happy with his decision to return to the city that had swallowed him whole. Not when they’d been there to see the very worst of his recovery. To hear his screams when he unthawed just enough to feel that pain again, to realize the true horror of what he’d become, and had seen him almost crumple under the weight of it.

God, was he grateful Wally had his super-speed.

“It’s fine,” Wally had tried, yanking out the dagger in his gut like it was no big deal. Raven was already descending from an upper level with a hand outstretched, because no matter what the speedster said Dick knew the truth. That had been an attack meant to kill. “I heal fast anyway, and I should have known better than to startle you.”

“Raven,” he had curled a hand around her wrist when she finally deemed Wally stable enough to leave the healing bay. He'd been waiting by the door for an hour. She simply looked into his face. His heart. And then lower, until she raised a brow.

“You won’t be able to recover in time,” she told him.

“I know,” Dick said, without any of the feigned smiling and Dick Grayson mannerisms he’d adopted in the days since arriving at Titan Tower. Raven didn’t expect it, so he didn’t bother. “Which is why I need your help.”

She knew better than to ask if he’d meant it. To ask if he remembered exactly what it cost to dive into one’s psyche, where fear was a monster that could swallow you whole and hell could last an eternity.

She’d simply nodded and offered her hand.

It was nearly worse than the torture that had first broke him. Worse than days crawling about that damn maze and coming across skeleton after skeleton, story after story. Worse than feeling starvation creeping into all of his senses, until he couldn’t breathe without his stomach crying out in agony. But when he clawed his way out of her psychic trial, he knew that killing instinct was finally gone.

The day after he woke up in the healing bay, he asked Zatanna to take him home.

No one was happy about it. No one stopped him. And now that Dick was here, he had to admit they were right.

It was too soon.

“This is where I need to be,” Dick said out loud, feeling tired and cold as he stared out over the city.

Zatanna simply placed a hand on his shoulder. She smelled like safety and friend and beta, and Dick was grateful she’d agreed to bring him here. After everything, he craved the safety of a soothing scent. The Dick Grayson of Before would’ve had no qualms in turning into her touch and burying his face into her neck. To cling to animal comforts without shame.

This Dick Grayson, however, could do no such thing. That was fine. He could accept the comfort she offered, and that was good enough. If there was anything these three months had taught him, it was that this Dick Grayson was the one that was here to stay.

And this Dick Grayson needed to go _home_.)

\--

“ _MOM_ ,” Damian screeched when Dick opened his bedroom window from the outside and slipped in. Seeing him—smelling him—was much more a punch in the gut than the boy actually slamming into him at what felt like breakneck speeds. God, it had been. It was.

He’d almost forgotten how sweet his baby boy smelled, and Dick immediately curled his arms around Damian’s shoulders and buried his nose into his soft hair.

“You weren’t supposed to come back for another week!” Damian declared, wriggling back enough from his grip to glare up at him. Dick must have looked appropriately confused, because the boy stomped his foot and explained, “Given your movement across the Titans’ homes, it was _obvious_ you were going to stay with the Backwards Witch for another week, and I finally got Drake to book an ap—appropop—“ Damian scrunched up his nose in frustration. “ _Appropriate_ place to celebrate, and you’re _early!_ ”

Oh, yes. He should’ve known better than to assume Damian would have spent the last three months sulking under Bruce’s eye and twiddling his thumbs.

“My clever owl,” he said, and Damian practically preened. He dove in for another hug, and Dick wasn’t surprised to feel the boy subtly checking for weapons on his person—he had his knives hidden in his pants and a few more weapons up his sleeves, but Damian seemed to be expecting them—before grabbing Dick’s hand and dragging him around the room.

“Drake is clearly unfit to act as Father’s heir,” Damian was babbling. It hurt to hear Talia’s speech patterns in the boy’s enthusiastic rambling, but the joy of hearing Damian’s voice at all was worth it. “And Todd’s just as bad, though he at least knows how to fight. He’s the only one who spars with me. Father says I’m too _young_.”

 _Father_ was at least talking to their son, at least. Bruce must have really taken his advice to heart, because there were a few souvenir photos of father and son together at the zoo taped to the wall: Bruce looking somewhat uncomfortable, and Damian downright glowering at the cameraman. Large animal posters were plastered around the photos with much more enthusiasm, as well as a map and a corkboard filled with article clippings.

Half seemed to relate to the League of Shadows; the other half focused on Dick’s own escapades across the country.

Only five-years-old and already such a little detective. Dick found himself more touched than horrified. Another Talon-induced emotional response, maybe, but his all the same.

(And some part of him suspected that even the Before Dick Grayson would have found the sleuthing adorable. The Bats were just fucked up like that. No use arguing about it.)

“You are too young. But you’re not unqualified. They’re not the same thing,” Dick said once he finished glancing around the room. Damian, who’d stopped the tour with a nervous bite of his lip, peered up at him. The short burst of excitement had masked the hurt lying underneath, and it physically pained Dick to see it on his boy’s face. Dick reached over and ran a hand through Damian’s fluffy hair. He melted under his touch.

“Don’t leave again,” he said in a quiet voice. The boy’s words gutted him, but he deserved it.

“Never,” Dick said. He hefted Damian up into his arms and smiled when the boy clung to him tightly. Possessively. God, how he’d ever let him to begin with, Dick couldn’t even fathom. “Do you want to go flying, owlet?”

Damian glanced up at him, curious. But not afraid.

That’s all Dick wanted.

After leaving one of his Talon daggers on Damian’s bedroom desk, he cracked open the window once more and slipped out into the night. One owlet against his heart and another below his ribcage, this would be a special night just for them.

When Dick made his first leap that night, Damian spread his arms out in pure delight. It reminded Dick of himself so many years ago, the first time he'd swung on a daring trapeze.

A Grayson through and through, this one. And never a Gray Son.

Not for as long as Dick Grayson still lived.

\--

Bruce was waiting for them when they returned.

Damian had nodded off on the motorcycle ride back to the manor, despite multiple declarations that he was _not tired_ and he wasn’t a _baby_. Dick had simply placed the boy in front of him on the seat and brought the bike to life. Within ten minutes, the boy had slumped over in sleep, and the rest of the ride to the Manor had been peacefully quiet.

Dick took off his motorcycle helmet and placed it on the rack. Unbuckled Damian’s own little helmet and carefully hefted the mumbling boy off the bike and into Alfred’s waiting arms.

“Alfie?” Damian murmured, face scrunched up. Suddenly, his eyes flew open and he glanced around. “ _Mom?_ ”

“Still here,” Dick soothed him, and the boy settled back down. Alfred looked up at his former charge, all cool professionalism and stoic aplomb—and so Dick allowed him to turn and carry Damian back up to his room, because they all had more important matters to deal with right now.

“You can’t take Damian without warning,” Bruce’s voice rumbled behind him. He was close, and without Damian or Alfred distracting him—Dick took a deep breath and regretted it. God, Bruce still smelled good. And he was running out of excuses not to acknowledge it.

“I did give warning.” Dick turned.

Bruce looked… well. He actually looked better than he did last time, given the lack of undead Talons clawing at his doorstep and former sort-of-mate haunting him with a son in tow. Reserved and wary, yes, but better.

Bruce withdrew the dagger from his pocket and glanced at it pointedly.

Dick shrugged. “It counts.”

“ _Dick.”_

“Hello to you too, Bruce,” Dick said.

Bruce stared at him.

It was easier than he thought it’d be, taking the first step and drawing the Batman into his arms. To actively channel the Dick Grayson of before, not because he wanted to play a role but because his specter was an unavoidable fact of life now. Because if it was left to the current Dick, no one would ever make a move.

Bruce was like a stone wall with how rigid he was with internalized rage, but Dick had expected it. He pressed his face into Bruce’s stiff neck and breathed, because angry or not he was _here._ They were here. Dick sank into the one familiar alpha scent he’d never be able to forget. If Zatanna’s scent was a soothing balm, Bruce’s felt like being dunked in a chilling pool after years spent burning in eternal flame. It was relief.

And soon, after an excruciating wait, he could feel the anger seeping away from Bruce’s shoulders. Because yes, he’d left, and yes, he’d stolen Damian away, and _yes_ , he’d returned without any of the warning the Batman preferred—but he wasn’t just any dangerous enemy of Gotham. He was Dick. He was Bruce’s omega, and he was home.

Dick let out an involuntary noise when Bruce finally opened his arms and swept Dick up against his chest. He was lifted up onto his toes and his head tilted back, and there was a familiar face pressing into his neck like a man dying of thirst.

“Dick,” Bruce said, tone nearly brittle with how emotionless it was. Dick squeezed his eyes shut. Felt the weight in his chest grow ever heavier, until he felt a horrifying wetness prick at the corner of his eyes. “God, Dick. You’re _alive_.”

Because three months didn’t cancel out the nearly five years Bruce had thought him dead. It didn’t cancel out the years _Dick_ had thought himself dead.

“Yeah, B,” Dick let out a weak chuckle. “I am.”

Bruce squeezed him tighter. Breathed him in once, twice. And then froze in confusion. Dick sighed when the alpha pulled away with a bemused expression on his face, which basically translated as a slight furrow between his brows.

“Dick,” he said, voice low. Dick just pressed his cheek against Bruce’s chest and closed his eyes. “Are you…?”

“Yes.”

“From…”

“Yes.”

A long pause. Finally: “What do you need.”

“I need you to take me upstairs,” Dick said, voice deceptively light. He was so tired, the exhaustion in his bones unavoidable now that he was finally safe. “I want to rest. Please, Bruce.”

Bruce tightened his grip around his waist. The meaning wasn’t lost on him, but nothing ever was. But he carefully picked Dick up into his arms and began carrying him up the stairs, and Dick.

Dick finally closed his eyes and let sleep claim him. He welcomed it with open arms.

\--

(Dick had expected stiff acceptance, as befitting a Talon, or even panic akin to how he’d felt when he found out about Damian. But as time crawled on past the three month mark and his heat refused to come, he found himself irrationally gleeful of his body’s stubbornness.

After all the suppressants and metals and god knows what else the Court had pumped into him, trust his body to bounce back as if nothing had happened. It was so delightfully rude.

And if his stupid omega body could bulldoze its way past physical and mental torture by doing something as dumb as getting _pregnant_ , Dick was sure he’d make it through too.)

—

They all would.

\-- 

 

 

 

 

 

_small extra_

 

“Mary,” he told Bruce over breakfast, weeks afterwards. When things had slowly but surely began to fit together again.

“Martha.”

“Marytha.”

“That’s not a name.”

“You’re a Wayne, you can make anything a name.”

“Damian,” Damian added, looking particularly sour over his orange juice.

“That’s your name,” Dick reached over him and grabbed a piece of toast. “We’re not giving her your name, owlet.”

Damian continued to scowl, and so Dick plucked him up from his chair and settled him in his lap.

“ _Mom!_ ”

“Maybe family names are out,” Dick said, buttering his toast like he didn’t have a lapful of sullen kindergartener in the way. “We could go with friend names. I’m sure Selina wouldn’t mind a miniature her running around. Makes up for all the grief you’ve caused her over the years.”

“No,” Bruce said.

“Selina, Belina,” Damian said. “Delina, Gelina.”

“Diana would be a good name, too.”

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Bruce said, frustrated. Clearly, he wasn’t handling Dick’s sudden sass well. He never did in the early morning. He stood up and pressed a large hand against Dick’s shoulder. “Just… choose a name that makes you happy, Dick. That’s all I care about.”

Dick watched Bruce stride out of the dining room and towards the study, undoubtedly escaping by ‘getting ready for work.’ He probably shouldn’t have pushed, but it was fun discovering these well-worn tracks. To feel the banter fall off the tongue and watch where it went.

Damian poked him.

“Helena,” he said, little face so serious Dick burst out laughing. Damian, taking great offense, pressed a butter knife against the artery at his wrist. Dick wasn’t cowed, and instead kissed the top of his boy’s head.

“Helena!” Damian insisted. “You get to replace me, I get to pick the name!”

“Not replacing you, owlet,” Dick said. “Obviously. You’re an owlet. She’s more likely a robin. Very different birds, you see.”

“Robins can’t see in the dark,” Damian mused to himself. Finally, he nodded and withdrew the butter knife like he was doing Dick a great favor. “Very well. Helena may keep the robin moni—monik— _name_ ; clearly Drake has degraded its worth with his own dumbness. I need to go now.”

“Oh?”

“I need to draw my costume,” Damian declared, and slipped out of Dick’s grasp to run right out of the room. Clearly, it was a mission of utmost importance. Dick chuckled and tipped his head back against the chair.

“Helena,” he said to himself. No one in the immediate family had that name. It would be a new beginning. After so much time spent struggling under the legacy of his own name, he could appreciate the freedom it would offer. Everything was different now, after all.

A sudden crash echoed out from above. Raised voices—Tim and Damian, undoubtedly. Dick sighed.

Then again, no matter what, some things never changed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline re: the other robins is a bit skewed here, but here's my half-assed explanation: losing Dick and then Jason drove Bruce crazier than usual, so Tim decided to track down Batman earlier than he did in the other timelines. Also, he didn't train with Dick first. And that is why by the time Damian is five, Tim is already Robin and Jason is back, because WHAT IS CONTINUITY WHY.


End file.
